1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to foot-like supports for single pole camera legs. Single pole camera legs are generally referred to as uni-pods or as mono pods and are usually only tip padded at the ground-rest end. To provide better support, the present invention is particularly directed towards a ground-resting auxiliary foot which can be attached to the lower terminal end of a mono pod.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Although some types of mono pod camera supports are seen in past art patents, the early disclosures were mostly directed at resting the lower end of the pod on a belt or breast plate. Later disclosures are principally directed towards tripod type supports. A principal fault with devices which rest anywhere on the photographer's body is distortion in the picture because of body movement which is almost impossible to prevent.
Typical of the older patents is U.S. Pat. No. 817,207 issued to H. L. Wheeler on Apr. 10, 1906 entitled "Camera Support." Wheeler uses a single pole resting on a plate attached to his belt. A sling around his neck is supposed to provide additional stability. It appears, however, that his devices would only add to the instability of resting a camera in a manner dependent entirely on the human body for support.
The "Portable Camera Support" patented by C. B. Paul on Mar. 5, 1935, U.S. Pat. No. 1,993,485, also uses a neck strap. His neck strap has a shield-like plate which supports a camera on a single pole with the pole fitting a receptacle on the plate. In use, the plate rests against the photographer's waist about at the belt line. Here again we see the human body being the only base support for the camera.
An example of using fold-up feet on the ends of a tripod are seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,003,328, issued to T. L. Gaynor on Mar. 26, 1991. The feet, as Gaynor calls them, have three opposing sections which appear somewhat cumbersome relative to the tripod leg structure. Gaynor uses a split end tube which is pulled together by an automotive type collar to retain his tripod legs in his foot attachment in one type of structure and a threaded leg fitting in another.
The foregoing are examples of past art devices for supporting cameras. The principal fault seen in past art sampling is resting the camera support on the human body as seen in the first two examples. In the second example, using a three sectioned foot having each section attached by a snap hinge and having to retain the folded up feet with a second strap seems a little much to add to an already burdened tripod.